A revised version of this abridged 6th edition of a 2600 page book in five volumes is now available at eBookMall in one downloading. The author, whose details you can read below, and a summary of whose book we have included as a taster right here on this page, took 24 years to write this marathon exercise, a marathons for him and for any reader who wants to go the distance. It is as much a study in autobiography as it is his own autobiography. The book, more a memoir in many ways, draws extensively from the social sciences and the humanities with over 2000 references & quotations. You can dip into this life narrative, this analysis of autobiography, anywhere and enjoy a read. For $2.98 it's a give away!

SUMMARY AND OVERVIEW OF VOLUMES ONE TO FIVE

Anyone wanting to get a bird's-eye view of the 2600 pages in this book need only go to volume 1, which is essentially an overview of what it means to write autobiography, to tell the story of one’s life. This first volume is a life-overview of a life narrative. Volume 2 is a discussion of the author’s pre-pioneering days during the Ten Year Crusade: 1953-1963; volume 3 examines his homefront pioneering years: 1962-1971 and volume 4: his international pioneering experience: 1971 to 2008. Finally, volume 5 is a pot-pourri of essays, poems and specific and various themes developed at more length. The 30 headings at the beginning of the chapters give anyone with little time a quick picture of the contents of this autobiographical study.

Pioneering, a Baha’i term that began having currency in the mid-1930s, is placed in a context, a context of one man’s life, a community’s life and the life of a global society. A survey of his letters, interviews about his writing, his journal, photographs, poetry, a detailed resume and bio-data as well as many essays are included in the text of this lengthy work. A million words is a big-read and readers are encouraged, therefore, to dip in at any place. There is no need to begin at the beginning. The author wishes those who do come upon this piece of writing much pleasure, much insight and a feeling that time spent reading this is time well-spent. This work can not be adequately understood, the author makes clear, as merely the story of his life. Were this just his story, he emphasizes, he is inclined to think he would never have written it in the first place, however personally meaningful the exercise might have been to him.

This work is, like William Wordsworth's great poem The Prelude, the account of the growth of a poetic personality and an imagination. It is also an account of another prelude, a prelude within the context of the Baha’i Faith. And finally, after several thousand years of the recording of memory in the western intellectual tradition, this work is yet another contribution to the achievement of a balance between personal memory on the one hand and collective memory on the other which is being achieved in modern history. These two major nodes of memorialization have taken place since the Homeric Period in the middle of another Formative Age in the Greek tradition of western history.

The full text of this work is still under review by the National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha'is of the United States and so it is that only a truncated version of these memoirs is found here. Much of the text in smaller, shorter sections, is also found at a great many places on the internet. No review is required by the National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha'is of Australia Inc when only portions of a writer's text are placed on the internet. The largest single portion of this text is found here at eBookMall.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

A.      EMPLOYMENT-ROLE POSITIONS: 1943-2008

2008-1999-Writer/Poet/Retired Teacher: George Town Tasmania
2005-2002-Program Presenter, City Park Radio, Launceston
2004-1999-Tutor and/or President: George Town School for Seniors Inc
1999-1988 -Lecturer in General Studies & Human Services WA Dept of Training
1987-1986 -Acting Lecturer in Management Studies and Co-ordinator of Further
            Education Unit at Headland College in South Headland, WA.
1985-1982 -Adult Educator, Open College of Tafe, Katherine, NT
1981       -Maintenance Scheduler, Renison Bell, Zeehan, Tasmania
1980       -Unemployed: Bi-Polar Disability
1979       -Editor, External Studies Unit, Tasmanian CAE; Youth Worker,
             Resource Centre Association, Launceston; Lecturer in Organizational
             Behaviour, Tasmanian CAE; Radio Journalist ABC, Launceston
1978-1976 -Lecturer in Social Sciences & Humanities, Ballarat CAE, Ballarat
1975       - Lecturer in Behavioural Studies, Whitehorse Technical College, Box
              Hill, Victoria
1974       -Senior Tutor in Education Studies, Tasmanian CAE, Launceston
1973-1972 -High School Teacher, South Australian Education Department
1971       - Primary School Teacher, Whyalla SA Australia
1971-1969 -Primary School Teacher Prince Edward County Board of Education,
              Picton, Ontario, Canada
1969        - Systems Analyst Bad Boy Co. Ltd. Toronto Ontario
1968-67   -Community Teacher, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern
              Development, Frobisher Bay, NWT, Canada
1967-59    -Summer jobs from grade 10 to end of university
1967-1949 - Attended 2 primary schools, 2 high schools and 2 universities in
              Canada: McMaster Uni:1963-1966, Windsor Teachers’ College: 1966/7.
1963-1944 -Childhood(1943-57) and adolescence(1957-63) in and around
              Hamilton Ontario.

B: SOME SOCIO-BIO-DATA (at: 2008)

I have been married for 41 years. My wife is a Tasmanian, aged 60. We’ve had 3 children: ages in 2008-42, 38 and 31. I am 64, a Canadian who moved to Australia in 1971 and have written 3 books--all available on the internet. I retired from most of my volunteer activity in 2005, from my part-time teaching in 2003 and from my full-time teaching in 1999 after more than 35 years in classrooms. I have been associated with the Baha’i Faith for 55 years. See my website for more details at: http://www.users.on.net/~ronprice/ or go to any search engine and type: RonPrice(no space) or RonPrice followed by any one of a number of words: poetry, history, literature, Baha’i, philosophy, apologetics, cinema, media, Shakespeare, bipolar disorder, among other words and phrases--for additional writings.